Welcome to The Saracens. Our message board is primarily a place for Saracens fans to discuss our club. We welcome posters from other clubs as long as their posts are respectful and not repetitive and our guidelines are followed. To leave a message on this board you must register. To register click HERE,
Non-rugby posts are welcome, but please prefix your subject header with "OT" or "Off Topic".

Grauniad reporting RFU slashing their contribution to Champoinship teams by half, which it says would be in effect ringfencing the Premiership. It appears the RFU are handing things over to PRL. Time for a collective Championship court case against PRL?

According to the Telegraph, it's slash the funding in half next season and withdraw it completely the season after! I see many teams in the Championship struggling even more or going under.
It was only a few years ago everybody was directed to become fully pro...now they're making us go part time again!
(Pirates fan in peace...)

Cornwall needs a Stadium, for health, for wealth, for Cornish pride. Sportva Kernow now!
Facebook/Twitter event: [www.facebook.com]
Follow it on Twitter: [twitter.com]
Like it on Facebook: [facebook.com]

Yes astonishing, when you consider all the money kicking around at Twickenham. A London Scottish prop told me he gets 9K a year. All back to part time now with training on Tuesday and Thursday nights because everyone has to go to work. Quite a kick in the teeth to the second tier clubs and the students at Carneige and Hartpury and of course give us a P. Wont even mention the minis. Am getting fed up with rugby this year and the people who run it..

Appalling - it is the first stage in making the Championship unviable. And then when it is unviable, PRL can ring fence.

Poor old Cornish Pirates, busy securing Council and HMG funding to build a new stadium, which would allow them into the Premiership (if promoted) …. and then the RFU going along with PRL's game to whip the carpet out from under them.

This decision by the RFU is completely indefensible. Effectively separates the full time professionals of the Premiership from everybody else playing amateur rugby union. Making it very hard for a late developer such as Christian Judge to climb the ladder.

Might as well in due course make them different games subject to increasingly different rules.

If we then call professional rugby union, rugby league we can repeat history.

The driving force for this is equally PRL who want to set up an A League in place of the Championship apparently. Given they're also currently pushing to have the number of non-EQP increased I think we can see how little the stance about their doing what is best for rugby as opposed to best for themselves really means.

Guardian report says there's a suggestion of the Championship adopting a salary cap of £2.5m. Any relegated Premiership club is going to be over that. Offloading 70% on average of a squad on relegation, when paying off contracts early counts against the cap and the other clubs don't have room in their budgets to take on more players, is just not sensible. Another points deduction and relegation to National 1?

The employment issue (for Champ players and coaches) began to raise its ugly head almost immediately.
On BBC local radio last night, Cov Chairman Jon Sharp said that his DoR had received over 100 enquiries from potentially unemployed/heavily downgraded players and coaches in just 24 hours...
Make of that what you will.
He also said of the RFU (in a roundabout fashion) "f**k 'em; we're staying fully-pro, and we ain't going anywhere".

It could all get very interesting.

(His hour-long interview is still available on BBC Coventry & Warwickshire 'Listen Again'' should anyone be interested).

NickLGuardian report says there's a suggestion of the Championship adopting a salary cap of £2.5m. Any relegated Premiership club is going to be over that. Offloading 70% on average of a squad on relegation, when paying off contracts early counts against the cap and the other clubs don't have room in their budgets to take on more players, is just not sensible. Another points deduction and relegation to National 1?

why would they feel the need to do anything to help the fallen Prem team?

On the one hand there's not helping the relegated Prem team, which seems reasonable enough when it's supposed to be a competition. On the other there's fixing the rules so no relegated Prem team can realistically comply with them.

Put aside any arguments about Saracens and think how this applies to any other club that finishes bottom of the Premiership in a "normal" season. How are they supposed to cut their wage bill by 70% within a couple of months?

BlackheathSarrieThe driving force for this is equally PRL who want to set up an A League in place of the Championship apparently. Given they're also currently pushing to have the number of non-EQP increased I think we can see how little the stance about their doing what is best for rugby as opposed to best for themselves really means.

Most of them can't even fund their Premiership squads! How is that supposed to work?

I'm really thinking that the RFU and PRL are shooting themselves in the foot here

1. PRL making clubs go for cheaper options by using more Saffers and Pacifica Islanders
2. RFU effectively removing the English alternatives as there is nowhere for them to ply their trade post academy

I can see the situation clarifying more and more that if a player isn't in the U20 english squad he will drop out of the game before he reaches the point of full development. We already konw that 50% of U20s drop out because they don't develop in the right way and being able to push a player off for a year or two in the Championship was a way of keeping the starting pool hogh

I can see in 10 years time all te prem sides will have less than 50% EQP on their staff and those that make it to 23 will not be challanged into kicking onward into Internationals. It will become like cricket where perhaps 30 players are good enough to play for England and they will not be as hungry because the 30 below them won't be as good as the second 30 are now

It strikes me as very significant that it is an "open letter" whilst much of what the PRL and RFU do is behind closed doors.

I am reading Unholy Union by Michael Alwyn - about 1/3 through - where he charts the history of these organisations and makes pretty clear that their interest is not necessarily in growing and promoting the game, players or fans but much more in protecting their vested interests - the old boys club.
So far, it is a scary book for anyone who loves the game. It is a real eye opener for me and gives me zero confidence that the governing bodies are good custodians and capable of delivering a coherent strategy. Ultimately that will be expressed in how much sponsors and broadcasters are willing to pay for rights; PRL and RFU seem to be doing an excellent job of shooting themselves in the foot.

We record all IP addresses on the Sportnetwork message boards which may be required by the authorities in case of defamatory or abusive comment.
We seek to monitor the Message Boards at regular intervals.
We do not associate Sportnetwork with any of the comments and do not take responsibility for any statements or opinions expressed on the Message Boards.
If you have any cause for concern over any material posted here please let us know as soon as possible by e-mailing
abuse@sportnetwork.net